Before COVID-19 hit I was happily single living on my own (with my dog) in Brooklyn. I had a running every-other-Sunday-night sex date with a lover who I’d known for almost two years. He was a lover I trusted but also a lover I knew would never be more than my Sunday guy. We weren’t committed and I was perfectly okay with that. The set up gave me the reliable intimacy and sex I needed while also giving me the freedom to live my life, meet other people, and come and go as I please. I felt fulfilled and was certain this casual mindset would fulfill me for many years to come.
Enter March 2020.
Living alone switched from cool to concerning. I was freaked. Sure, I had my dog but so did Will Smith in I Am Legend and we all remember how that turned out. I didn’t want to figure this out alone and I didn’t want to shoot my dog. I packed a suitcase and abandoned my sweet, single gal setup to spend what I thought would be a few weeks at my parents house in the suburbs until everything ‘blew over’.
Like some sort of fucked up, backwards advent calendar, every day a door closed with pieces of life I considered ‘normal’ locked away. My friends turned into computer screens, my apartment into a twin bed, my day job into Zoom and my side hustle totaled. Everything that had kept me feeling fulfilled either went online or disappeared completely. But I remained hopeful about my bimonthly rendezvous. If businesses, comedy shows and Ben Gibbard were finding ways to stay connected, there had to be a way for us. I was already skilled in the art of the sexy selfie and let’s not forget that one time I appeared on Vice’s Snapchat for my sexting abilities. I was confident it would be manageable. But when I asked my lover if he would consider taking our fulfilling, sexy connection online, his answer was a kind but decided “No.”
I knew friends who were playing with their lovers safely on a screen. Getting creative through virtual showers, mutual masturbation, or simply watching each other naked. Not me. The man who once tied me to his bed was now FaceTiming me in a rabbit filter as he cut carrots for dinner. What the holy, mood killer was this?
I was grateful that he was honest with me about what he could and couldn’t provide. I completely understood that virtual intimacy would never be the same as our get togethers. Virtual intimacy would never replicate the elevator up to his apartment, the cup of coffee that started our evenings, the tension that built as we sipped. But I was still disappointed that he was unable to even try and push through the awkwardness.
As my situation slowed, I watched as the trend of “turbo relationships” took over. Couples accelerating the speed of their relationships, cohabitating and committing to each other quicker than usual. But I was a single person with no relationship to accelerate, no social life to celebrate and a lot more alone time to contemplate.
When push came to pandemic, my lover couldn’t fulfill a particular need that was important to me. I knew that not only was our relationship changed forever, my relationship with relationships was changed forever too: I wanted to find a partner. And not just a Sunday night one.
“For most people,” says Dr. Timaree Schmit, a Philadelphia-based sex educator and performer, “I suspect the pandemic exacerbated whatever was already there, whether it be loneliness, self-reliance, intimacy or relationship stress.”
I admit that even in my happiest moments alone, there was always a part of me that wished someone was there to witness it. But I was a performer! Wasn’t craving an audience to perform for just a side effect of narcissism? Or was that the ‘more’ I was missing?
I’ve been back in my ‘single gal apartment’ for a few months now and of course I remember what it is I love about this life. Cooking for myself, dancing with myself, screaming Reggie and the Full Effect lyrics by myself (as formerly emo women are required to do every six months). I’m enjoying being back on my bullshit but I’m also being more honest with my bullshit. There are parts of being a single woman, living alone that I’m not ready to give up yet, and there are those that I am. Cooking exactly what I want for myself with no one to complain or steal my seconds is great. But I can also recognize cooking and sharing a meal with someone is great too. And if there was another lockdown, I definitely wouldn’t want to be cooking alone.
The pandemic slowed down a lot of things but conversations with ourselves and those we care about were not one of them. I’ve been putting myself out there and getting vulnerable in ways I wasn’t expecting because why not? Whether my pre-COVID life was a distraction for what I want and need in life, I’ll never know. But I can honestly say now, I’m ready for something new.